


Patrick's Excellent Adventure (The Vegas Calling Remix)

by kinetikatrue



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's often the trips we don't intend to take which show us the places we most need to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patrick's Excellent Adventure (The Vegas Calling Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatsfinewithus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thatsfinewithus), [katilara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pete and the Wandicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/816) by katilara. 



Patrick's not actually hiding from the rest of Decaydance. He's not. It's just that he'd, well, not exactly forgotten what it was like to be around the entire rest of his label, or most of them anyway. He doesn't think anybody could truly do that once they'd had the experience. But he thinks maybe he hadn't been remembering it quite properly, not what it was like in full-on technicolor and surround sound.

They're loud. And energetic. And pretty much any of them, except for the non-Jon members of Panic!, could probably drink him under the table without even trying. (Even Andy could have, once upon a time.) And, while Patrick likes people just fine, sometimes he just needs to be alone, get a little space, a little time when nobody's asking him for anything. When nobody's trying to get him to sing something or tell the story about that one time or help them play a practical joke or settle a bet.

So he's really not hiding out, but he is kindof hoping that nobody will think of looking for him in this particular backstage room for a while.

When he hears the . . . noise he's a bit surprised, because he didn't hear the door open. And Pete may be a sneaky fucker (and Pete is definitely the most likely person to be trying to track him down already), but he's not actually that stealthy. Usually he clomps around like a horse wearing shitkickers. Though he's been known to take Patrick by surprise when Patrick's particularly absorbed by a song.

Patrick's nothing like that absorbed at the moment, though. He's been sitting on the couch with his acoustic in his lap, not really playing anything, just holding it and letting his fingers trace familiar patterns on the strings, one silent chord into the next and then the one after that. He thinks, as he's looking up from his guitar, that maybe it'll be Gabe, because Gabe, when he isn't drunk, _is_ that stealthy.

It's not Gabe. It's purple, but it's not Gabe, not unless Gabe has been turned into some sort of purple . . . horse . . . _thing_. With a horn sticking out of its forehead. And a green mane. And bat wings. And a lobster's claw. And a feathery tail. And tentacles. Which is about the point where Patrick's inner voice of reason gives up attempting to make sense of reality and curls up in the corner of Patrick's brain, gibbering.

Because what Patrick is seeing can't actually exist, can it? That . . . _thing_ he thinks he's seeing can't actually be Gabe. Unless he's come up with a fucking incredible costume from somewhere. Magic doesn't exist. It really doesn't. And, even if it did, he can't see how Gabe would have ended up turned into a . . . a purple . . . _thing_. Which Patrick has no idea what to call.

(Actually, since this is Gabe he's talking about, he can see entirely too clearly how Gabe could have run afoul of some magic user and ended up turned into a . . . purple . . . horse . . . _thing_. Which he still has no idea what to call. Not properly.)

Still, magic doesn't actually exist. Patrick's hallucinating, is what it is. Clearly the first three days of tour have stressed him out more than he'd thought they had. So, he's gonna put his guitar down on the chair off to his right, and lie down on the nice comfy couch, and just . . . rest for a while. For as long as he possibly can.

His subconscious apparently has other plans for him, though, because now it's made the purple . . . horned . . . horse . . . _thing_ it's conjured up appear to be stealing Patrick's hat. Which is not okay with Patrick, at all. The hat's pretty much new. And it has pinstripes. And if there isn't actually anything stealing it off his head, then it might be about to land on the floor and get infected with venue gunk. And Patrick would not be okay with that, either. So his new plan is to catch his hat before it lands on the floor, and then put it and his guitar on the chair, and lie back on the nice comfy couch, and rest. For real. Because he clearly needs to do exactly that.

The moment he touches his hat, though, he feels this lurch in the pit of his stomach, like he just went over the top of a really high roller coaster or something. The purple . . . horned . . . tentacle-y . . . horse . . . _thing_ grins Cheshire-Cat wide at him and he thinks, _Fuck, I really need a day off_. And then the room vanishes and he doesn't think anything at all.

***

Patrick's lying on a couch in the dark. The couch part is expected, but he doesn't remember the lights being out before. And the couch itself doesn't seem quite right, either. He thinks maybe the fabric should be . . . smoother, maybe? Maybe even leather. And that only the middle bit should be saggy, rather than being pretty much saggy all over. But he could be wrong, what with the whole apparently already being overstressed by tour thing. And how it's been making him hallucinate. And possibly even faint? That would explain why he doesn't remember the room going dark . . .

Which is about when his memories of what actually happened come slamming back into places like a bunch of dominoes knocking each other over, one rhythmic _thunk_ after another.

_Sitting on a leather couch in a room backstage with his guitar._

_Hearing that unexpected noise._

_Looking up to see the . . . **thing**_.

_Watching it steal his hat._

_The room vanishing._

And now here he is, waking up on a fabric-covered couch, in the dark, with his hat balanced carefully on his stomach and his guitar nowhere in sight. And no telling whether he hallucinated the thing or the leather couch.

But at least he's still alone. He can have his nervous breakdown when he's finally ready to deal with people again. For the moment, he's just going to fold his hands behind his head and stare up at the ceiling and contemplate absolutely nothing. Except maybe the newly novel experience of getting to stare at a ceiling that's more than a foot away from his nose.

That, of course, is when he hears the footsteps outside. He's apparently less ready to give up his personal Fortress of Solitude than he thought he was, though, because his first thought is for hiding places and not for, oh, wondering who's about to invade it.

That thought comes hot on the heels of the first though, cued up when he sits up and discovers that the couch is angled across a corner of the room rather than pushed flush against the far wall of it. Which is convenient as far as hiding places go. Since he really, _really_ wants one now that he's pretty sure that _this is not the couch he's looking for_. And that whoever's outside the room will not be expecting to find Patrick in it. Which means that Patrick doesn't want them to find him in it until he knows who they are.

There's a sound like metal scraping against metal, like maybe someone trying to fit a key into an old lock. And that cuts through his brain's imitation of a frantic hamster on a wheel like nothing else. He knows that sort of old lock from back in the day - and while he's grateful to this one for buying him enough time to calm down some, he knows he won't have that much longer before it gives way, if the person outside is at all familiar with it. Which means he needs to get over the back of the couch _now_ \- and take his hat with him.

So he makes with the moving - and apparently just in time. He's only just gotten settled on the floor, lying on his stomach, when there's a click and a scraping sound and the room goes a shade lighter than it was before.

He can't see much at first - just a drum kit, sitting on a faded area rug, an island of color in the middle of a sea of stained concrete floor. The kit obviously isn't new, or top of the line - but it isn't in bad shape or anything. And the pieces of it are arranged with the sort of specificity that can only mean _serious drummer_. The whole combo says 'practice space' to Patrick. And he figures he should know.

When Spencer Smith walks into view Patrick almost doesn't recognize him. He spends a minute thinking _doesn't that kid look like . . . _ before he realizes that it's not just that the kid looks like Spencer; it's that he is him. That he is Spencer Smith, just the one who existed . . . three years ago.

Which means Patrick's not just not _where_ he's supposed to be; he's also not _when_ he's supposed to be. He's fucking gone and traveled through space and time. And he'd really better not let Spencer see him.

Not that Spencer seems inclined to go looking behind the couch for stray members of Fall Out Boy. He looked pissed when he first appeared - and he doesn't seem to have calmed down since. Patrick guesses that he's here to get some alone time with his drums and work out some of his issues through pounding the shit out of them. It worked for Patrick back in the day - hell, it still works now, when he's in range of his kit and needs some stress relief.

Spencer hasn't gotten down to it yet, though. He's standing on the rug, staring down at his feet as though his shoes are the most fascinating things in the world. Or maybe like they're the things that are pissing him off. Which, who knows - maybe they are. Patrick's seen some of Spencer's shoe collection and from what he's seen, Spencer takes his shoes nearly as seriously as he takes drumming. Even Patrick isn't so obsessed that he keeps all his shoes in their original boxes when he isn't wearing them.

Spencer must finally make a decision, though, because a moment later he's walking over to his kit, shoes forgotten - or at least ignored. And from then on he sticks to the script Patrick was expecting: he pounds the shit out of his kit, as carefully and precisely as Patrick has ever seen him play during a show, sticks and strands of hair both cutting arcs through the air around him. Patrick's almost sorry Spencer doesn't get this angry more often if that's what it takes to inspire him to give this sort of performance.

Spencer can't keep drumming that intensely forever, though. Eventually he winds down, red-cheeked and out of breath. His t-shirt is drenched with sweat and his hair is dripping with it - and Patrick is suddenly far more aware that he's apparently won himself a free (unexpected) vacation to a desert city. If his guess that he's landed in Las Vegas, in 2004, is correct.

Spencer sits on his throne for a while after he carefully sets down his sticks. But eventually he gets up and walks over to a part of the room Patrick can't see from behind the couch. When he reappears, he's carrying a beat-up backpack, which he sets down on his throne and takes a bottle of water out of. Most of the water goes for drinking, but he pours the tail end of the bottle over his head after stepping carefully off the rug and onto the concrete. Then he changes his t-shirt - and Patrick nearly chokes from not laughing because the neck of the sweaty one is stained dark and there are dark trails meandering down his neck, which means that _Pete's internet sources might actually be right for once_, if that's what it looks like and Spencer actually dyes his hair.

After Spencer's wiped himself down with the sweaty t-shirt and put the dry one on in its place, he doesn't linger, just puts the used t-shirt in an outer pocket of his bag, packs up his sticks and the empty water bottle and heads out. Patrick can hear the key scraping against the lock again once Spencer's shoved the door closed.

***

Patrick's going to have to stop staring at himself soon. But, well, it's been a while since he's seen one of the Take This To Your Grave posters so up close and personal. And this is really up close and personal, hanging on the cinderblock wall in front of him so his four years younger self is staring down at him, peeking out from beneath the brim of a cap he hasn't had in regular rotation for years. Years which feel like an eternity - and like they went by in an instant.

For a moment, he almost wishes he had a Sharpie in his pocket so that he could leave his mark, maybe write something like _Patrick Stump was here_. He doesn't though; he almost never does, if he hasn't just been handed one by one of their handlers - and besides, random acts of graffiti are more Pete's thing.

A quick check of his pockets proves that he has his wallet - and his cell phone, though he doesn't have any idea whether either of them will do him any good. He isn't supposed to be here, after all. There's clearly another, younger version of him running around this when who's probably calling people from a different cell phone number and paying for things using a different checking account and even wearing a different hat on his head. A him who could be his cousin. Or possibly his brother. But probably not somebody anybody would really, truly mistake him for. He's not entirely sure that's a comforting thought. But he thinks it could maybe be liberating if he let it.

He, Patrick Martin Stump, could walk down the street and expect nobody to recognize him. Not one single teenager. Not even their most diehard fan. He could really, truly take advantage of that unexpected vacation he's been handed.

He thinks it's time to see about getting out of there and going out on the town.

***

Patrick's standing at a bus stop, hoping that when a bus comes by (if a bus comes by) it'll be heading in a direction he wants to go. Not that he knows what direction he wants to go in. He just knows he wants to take full advantage of the day he's been given . . . on the limited budget he appears to have been left with. Thus, the bus.

Also, probably, a sub shop and a used record store and a coffee house. Maybe a diner if he's feeling extravagant. Not that any of these things have more than generic designations in his head, except possibly the sub shop, which might end up being Port Of Subs if he can figure out where the home of Panic's favorite sandwiches is actually located.

He may have gotten used to being able to buy any musical instrument or pair of shoes that strikes his fancy, but his van days weren't _that_ long ago. He hasn't forgotten living on gas station burritos and generic pop. If his credit card won't work in this when and where, he'll still be just fine. The bright lights of the casinos aren't calling his name and he still loves hunting through the used record bins for hidden treasures. He might even play musical fairy godfather if he finds anything he thinks _somebody_ has to own.

Since he doesn't think anything that didn't come with him is likely to make it home. Probably.

By the time the bus comes, Patrick's feeling a bit less enchanted with the simple lifestyle. The cloudless blue sky may be beautiful, but the sun's fucking hot and the bus stop doesn't come with a shelter. His hat and long-sleeved shirt have kept him from burning, but he's sweated through everything he's wearing and he really wants a cold drink. Like, now. A bus is not exactly a convenience store, however, so there's nothing for it but to pay his fare and keep his eyes peeled for stores that look like they might come with air conditioning _and_ cold beverages.

His clothes go cold and clammy against his skin pretty quickly in the chilled air of the bus. He's wishing for a blazer or a cardigan or a hoodie or pretty much any other long-sleeved piece of clothing long before they hit a shopping district. The rows upon rows of nearly identical houses had seemed like they would never give way to any other type of building. Patrick knows from suburbs - he grew up in one of Chicago's finest - and this is not how they're supposed to be.

But, then, Vegas is up there with LA in his estimation of cities that are nothing like cities are supposed to be. And he's still thinking of moving to LA eventually. If the music business doesn't decide to chew him up and spit him out first.

The bus does pass through an area with a significant number of stores, eventually, though - and Patrick gets off at the first possible stop. He gets his cold beverage from a 7-11, gets an extra-large cherry coke slurpee just like he used to when he was actually in high school - and then he walks down the street slurping it through the bright red straw and window-shopping. The heat certainly isn't as bad when he can suck tasty icy goodness up through a straw and down his throat whenever he needs a bit more. He can't think of anything else he'd rather do more.

Except possibly hang out in a record store. And the universe has clearly decided to be in tune with his desires because he looks up from tossing his slurpee cup in the trash to see his favorite sort of independent music store taking up a couple of storefronts directly across the street. And when he enters and the chimes above the door ring out an actual scale he knows he's found a home away from home.

He's there to commune with music rather than people - and most of the other customers seem to be of the same mind. Occasionally a conversation will break out briefly, but it always dies down again after a bit. And the noise level only gets truly distracting once. Nobody even attempts to talk to Patrick - and by the end of the afternoon he's plundered every single crate of records in the store and collected a fantasy stack of records he wishes he could take home with him. He's not going to try his luck with his credit card to buy them, though - even if it did work, he's pretty sure taking them home probably wouldn't work out. Most likely, anyway. The stories he's read involving time travel haven't been all that clear on the matter.

He's standing there, cradling the stack and looking at the cover art of the vintage Bowie currently on top when his stomach starts growling, his cue to head for the counter and figure out where to go for dinner. So he takes his stack up with him all the same. The clerk is happy to give him directions to the Port Of Subs - and to point him at a coffee shop which is apparently having an open mic night. And when he tells her, earnestly, to make sure somebody gives all the records in his stack a good home, she only rolls her eyes a little.

He guesses it's something that he's got more sense than to try to use that as a pick-up line.

He finds Port Of Subs in time for dinner, just fine - and he's sitting at a window table enjoying his large veggie with everything and wishing he had a notebook to write in when he's once again faced with an unexpected (or possibly not - if he's honest with himself, he maybe tried to find their Port Of Subs specifically because it might have Spencer in it) Spencer Smith, walking through the door at the side of Ryan Ross. They're completely oblivious to his presence and it's a weird experience watching them, knowing how their lives will play out over the next couple years, but he can't help it. He never really knew them like this, has never really spent time with them in Vegas, doing the ordinary things people do when they don't have tours to go on. He doesn't remember them being this young, but, then, he supposes he wouldn't have thought of them that way; he was younger too, three years ago.

At the counter, they each order a sandwich: a no. 8 and a no.13 - and then Ryan orders a second one, a no. 6, the twin to the one Patrick has in front of him - to go. Spencer doesn't say anything, but Patrick's pretty sure he would've put the order in himself if Ryan hadn't. Patrick's never known him to not look out for Brendon Urie. They both look tired and strained, though, like the year's barely begun and it's already been a long one. But they're determined to keep going, make their dreams a reality

He takes a walk after dinner, in a little park off on a side street a couple blocks down from the sub shop. There're benches and a play area and a fountain, turned on for the evening. A few people are out walking dogs - and some little kids are playing in the sand pit while their parents watch from a nearby bench, but mostly it's quiet. The park's mostly just not big enough to really draw a crowd and Patrick likes that, likes how it feels like the intimacy of a small venue.

The coffee shop isn't just a small venue; it's a tiny one. But it has amazing looking baked goods and board games in battered boxes on a brightly colored bookshelf - plus an enthusiastic clientele packing the couches and armchairs and cafe tables that fill the room.. Not everybody who plays at the open mic is actually good, but they do all genuinely seem to care about what they're doing. Some of them may have dreams of recording contracts and world tours dancing in their heads, but Patrick couldn't say which ones. There are the girls with their guitars - and the guys with _their_ guitars. Some of them play electric and some of them play acoustic - and there's even one duo made up of a girl on electric violin and a guy on electric cello who play the most haunting music Patrick's heard in months. It's nothing like catchy and he's not sure you even could set lyrics to it, but it stirs something deep in his soul and makes him wish for a drum to layer fills in and around their bowing.

It's nice being amongst musicians who aren't already his friends who aren't trying to impress him any more than they're trying to impress anybody else.

It's so nice that when everybody who's actually signed up to play that evening has played and the girl MC-ing the open mic asks if anybody wants to borrow the house guitar and take a chance at the mic Patrick finds himself standing up and holding out his hand before he's even thought about doing it. Of course, then he has to come up with something to actually play. In the end, he plays for his dad, plays a song his dad had played for him when he was a kid, something nobody would think to associate with him.

He tells the rest of the audience, "I don't know whether any of you will know this one, but, if you do, feel free to sing along." And then he checks the tuning of the guitar one last time, test-strums a few chords - and launches into _The Marvelous Toy_. At first it's just him, his voice and his fingers on the guitar strings, singing and playing a song he'd never have thought to play for an acoustic set. But then a few people join in on the words. And a few more join in on the choruses. And even more of them start clapping along.

By the time he finishes the song, the entire room is grinning and laughing - and Patrick's feeling . . . ambivalent. He loves performing, playing music, always has and always will. And he loves having an audience respond - but he really wishes his band were there to share the moment with him, wishes all his friends were, too, to sing along and rag him for his singing and his song choice - and his choice of hats, besides. He thinks he's ready to be back on tour. Just maybe.

A few people come up to him when the open mic actually wrap up, but they only want to tell him how nice it was to hear somebody sing a song they'd loved as children - or suggest that he ought to come back next week to play something else. There's no expectation of autographs or photographs hanging over them. Patrick . . . doesn't quite know how to react at first.

In the end, his ingrained politeness takes over: he thanks them, but doesn't commit to anything. And then he heads out into the night. He wants one last bit of quiet in this day and the park he went walking in earlier seems the perfect place to find it.

The evening's gone cool, but Patrick doesn't mind it; at the park, there are swings in the playground. Patrick heeds their call, takes off pumping, nearly tries to launch himself into the sky feet first. Eventually he lets his chosen swing slow, though, lets his feet disperse the energy they'd help build up down into the earth. And then he sits - and doesn't really think anything. His mind is still for once, but his fingers tap-tap-tap against his thighs. It's probably not the music of the spheres, but he's not sure anybody will ever discover the rhythm of that.

He thinks that as long as he and his band keep playing what feels like the music of their spheres, then that's probably more than good enough. Even if what that is keeps changing. Maybe even particularly if what that is keeps changing.

He knows it's November of 2004, here, knows the day even - and he also thinks he knows what thing he needs to do before he can go home is. He gets out his phone, taps out _Tell Pete to sign the Vegas kids. He won't regret it_ and then sits staring at the message.

He doesn't know how this will work, or why, but he knows he's supposed to do it, because he remembers getting the text late one November evening. When he was taking a break from mixing and staring out the window at the city and thinking about nothing and everything. He remembers not recognizing the number and thinking it was weird. But also agreeing, because his anonymous advisor was right. Patrick had heard Panic's demos and if Pete didn't sign them then Patrick was going to send him to get his head checked. Again.

When he hits send, his phone displays the 'sending text' screen for what seems like forever - but eventually it blinks out and is replaced by the 'message sent' screen. He's not sure that it matters that he sent it, except for how it would change his timeline if he hadn't received it. Though he can't imagine Pete not wanting to sign Panic! whether or not Patrick was on board with the idea.

When he feels his stomach lurch again, he's not actually surprised. He's pretty sure his work here is done and he's more than ready to go back to his own place in the timestream. When the park starts to vanish from sight, all Patrick can think is _there's no place like home_.

***

Patrick's lying on a couch again. It's leather this time. And the room is brightly lit and fucking filled with people. Pretty much the entire tour - plus a few people he doesn't recognize. Venue staff, maybe. There's a lot of them. Though they mostly don't wear robes.

Pete's kneeling beside the couch, saying, "They said you'd come back when you were ready - "

Joe's voice cuts in, all stoned patience, "They said he'd come back when he'd accomplished whatever the wandicorn had sent him there to do, Pete."

And Patrick has to ask, foolishly, "Who's 'they'? And what's a wandicorn?"

Andy answers this time, "The Unspeakables. Who apparently actually exist. And know how to deal with thing like wandicorns. Which is what the purple thing with the horn was."

Which, okay, Patrick guesses things out of Harry Potter being real is not out of line with the fact that he's just returned from a trip through time and space which he had been sent on by a mythological creature he'd never even heard of prior to his first encounter with it. He'd probably have been more upset if the world hadn't turned out to contain wizards.

One of the people wearing robes, a curly-haired woman in glasses, says, "It's lucky for you that you came back on your own when you did - interventions in wandicorn kidnappings are often . . . unpleasant." She purses her lips and adds, "Particularly in the good old days, when we'd have had to modify your memory afterwards. All of your memories, really."

"We would've gotten you back somehow, though - if you hadn't turned up on your own," says a man standing to her left, eyes big behind his thick glasses. "We _are_ good at what we do."

"That's what the guys said when we contacted them to get help," Jon puts in, smiling peaceably.

The room erupts into side conversations then, Pete pouncing on Patrick with all of Panic! in tow and asking where he'd been and what he'd done. Patrick looks at Ryan and Spencer and says, "You were there. And you . . . not the rest of you, though.."

He gets howled at for the _Wizard of Oz_ reference just like always, but he thinks to himself, anyway, _there really is no place like home._ Which is most definitely where the heart is. And he's there.


End file.
